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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22511281">A Most Secret Secret</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken'>Davechicken</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman &amp; Terry Pratchett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 09:16:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,054</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22511281</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Aziraphale has a secret. And he covers with a lie.</p>
<p>This is not unusual, but not too painful, for once.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>118</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Chaste Omens</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Most Secret Secret</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lisalicious/gifts">Lisalicious</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Aziraphale had a secret.</p>
<p>In truth, he had many. Some of which were things he had meant to mention, but hadn’t; these made a certain demon frustratedly curious but stubbornly determined not to ask. This lead to a continual misunderstanding where one party was sure the other knew, the other was pretending he did, and wires were not so much crossed as twisted up worse than the local telephone exchange when Openreach visited.</p>
<p>Yet other secrets were things that he simply hadn’t thought about mentioning, which - due to the natural, mortal nature of Humanity - only he and the Almighty now knew. </p>
<p>But this one? This one was deliberate. So deliberate, in fact, that a lie blurted in a moment of nerves had compounded by even <i>more</i> stubbornness into a veritable, metaphorical avalanche of deceit.</p>
<p>Aziraphale did not sleep. This was not the lie.</p>
<p>What the lie was, in fact, was <b>why</b>.</p>
<p>Off-handedly, many years ago, Crowley had extolled the not-virtues-but-almost of closing one’s eyes and resting for a spell. Somewhere between rolling over the slovenly, lazy, idle pleasures of doing nothing, and the more acceptable tale of refreshing one’s body and mind. A meditation, a prayer, a whatever else he’d sold it as. Not with any true ulterior motive, but in the quiet ways they’d shared things they’d found enjoyable in their double-speak way before it was more acceptable to outright invite. </p>
<p>And Aziraphale had - curious and indulgent as he was - tried.</p>
<p>And tried.</p>
<p>And tried.</p>
<p>It seemed like the sort of thing he should be good at. It involved being in a soft, comfortable, safe place. It involved calm, quiet, and introspection. It involved bodily pleasure (if done right), and the potential for that other thing he envied Humanity: <i>dreaming</i>.</p>
<p>But it eluded him.</p>
<p>Oh, he tried. He tried soft beds, hard beds. He tried a chaise longue. He tried the seated pose of the monks. He tried hammocks. He tried leaning back on a good tree in the warm sun, with a book and a bottle and a babbling, bloody brook.</p>
<p>But he could not, would not, had not ever been able to find that distant goal of unconscious release.</p>
<p>Crowley was a <i>demon</i>, but why should that mean he could, where the angel couldn’t? They were similarly encumbered by mortal flesh. They were - if otherwise inclined - more alike one another, than either was close to Humans. So why, oh why, couldn’t he?</p>
<p>Was it his racing mind? Had he become his own enemy? The more he tried, the more he couldn’t. Neither counting sheep (until numbers became too large for words to convey and he simply had to add ‘and another’), nor thinking of nothing (what is ‘nothing’? What was the world - no - <b>existence</b> like before She added things to it? Was it white? Was white something added by things? Was black something? Would it even be black if there was no white to--) none of it worked.</p>
<p>It was, he had to admit, a failing. He could not get there. The springs were too springy. The fabric too scratchy. The light too bright (or not bright enough). The hair on his arms itched. (He at no other point in his existence was even aware of it, until he tried to sleep.) The world moved too fast. The distant sound of horses, or cars, or anything… He just… could not… sleep.</p>
<p>So he lied.</p>
<p>He blurted out that he jolly well didn’t want to, that it was a waste of his time, and he would really rather not.</p>
<p>And after such a bold (flustered, grumpy, snitty) assertion, he could not then admit it was some problem he hadn’t resolved, and he was stuck in the lie and the unhappiness until he almost could believe it himself.</p>
<p>At least, until the blasted demon went and did one of his uncharacteristic (but really, totally in-character) miracles again.</p>
<p>Drinks. Many drinks. The kind that didn’t - for once - depress the mind so much as depress the worry. An unusually good night. Delicious food. A wobbly walk home. A knuckle that glanced the back of his wrist. </p>
<p>Nice. In the newer, less pedantic sense. A word you should not use, and yet somehow was the best one for the job.</p>
<p>Crowley had been sleepy, but fighting to keep awake, and greedy for more company. Aziraphale had indulged him, because he didn’t want the demon to leave him feeling his contentment melt into loneliness. On a couch that was bigger than it ought to be, and with fingers that occasionally eked their way into his hair and drew soft tendrils of pleasure from his body.</p>
<p>Jokes and memories that grew more distant, more sparse. Still as rich, still as deep, but with pauses that lengthened like the heavy breaths that supported them. He could feel the demon’s heart beating slowly and solidly, and the warmth of every place they touched. Soft. Sharp, without being cruel. Firm. Yielding. Melting, and the edges of where he was and where <i>he</i> was becoming one rising, falling <b>one</b>.</p>
<p>He hadn’t even known he was falling asleep, not until he woke. A snort and a strange feeling of tingling in one arm, and the awareness of an imprint into his cheek. Golden eyes that glittered in amusement at him, and he tried (not very hard) to wriggle free.</p>
<p>“Thought you didn’t like to sleep.”</p>
<p>Oh. Oh. He had, hadn’t he? He’d managed. Curled up with their legs tangled and his chest pillowed on the demon’s chest. </p>
<p>Aziraphale wrinkled his nose in what was meant to convince (and didn’t). </p>
<p>“I could hardly leave you alone, in the state you were in.”</p>
<p>“Well,” Crowley schmoozed, in what should have sounded sleezy but really sounded adorable and damn him all the way back to Hell (but not really). “I often <i>am</i> in that state.”</p>
<p>“Well,” Aziraphale echoed. “I shall have to ensure you remain safe, then, shan’t I?”</p>
<p>“If you insist.”</p>
<p>“Oh, shut up and don’t stop those wicked fingers of yours, if you know what’s good for you.”</p>
<p>Crowley did not stop. Not for a long time. Aziraphale refused to get up for what felt like a century, but was really much closer to a few hours. Time had a habit of forgetting what the truth was, around his demon. Aziraphale blamed him entirely.</p>
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